1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid cartridge which is detachably mounted to a liquid consuming apparatus and supplies a liquid stored therein to a liquid consuming apparatus, a contact device for contacting an electrical connection terminal portion provided to the liquid cartridge with a connector provided to a recording apparatus to contact with the connection terminal portion, a recording apparatus having the contact device, and a liquid consuming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
The liquid consuming apparatus denotes all the apparatuses which consumes a liquid supplied to a predetermined portion at a starting time thereof. As a representative example thereof, there is a liquid spray apparatus for spraying liquid droplets through a spray head. The liquid spray apparatus denotes a recording apparatus such as an inkjet recording apparatus, a copier, and a facsimile for performing a recording operation on a recording object such as recording paper by spraying ink on the recording object through a liquid spray head such as a recording head. But not limited to the recording apparatus, the liquid spray apparatus may denote an apparatus for fixing a liquid corresponding to a specific usage instead of the ink on a spray object corresponding to the recording object by spraying the liquid on the spray object through a liquid spray head corresponding to the aforementioned recording head.
As a liquid spray head, there are the aforementioned recording head, a colorant spray head used for producing a color filter of a liquid crystal display or the like, an electrode material (conductive paste) spray head used for producing electrodes of an organic EL display, a surface emitting display (FED), or the like, a bio-organic material spray head used for producing a bio chip, a specimen spray head for spraying a specimen with a precision pipet, and or the like.
An example of the inkjet recording apparatus or the liquid spray apparatus, there is an inkjet printer. The inkjet printer records characters or images by feeding the recording object such as a paper set on a feeding tray one-by-one by using a feeding mechanism, conveying the recording object intermittently by a small length thereof in a sub scan direction by using paper conveying means, and spraying ink droplets on the recording object by using a recording head mounted on a carriage which reciprocally moves in a main scan direction.
Here, there are a type of the ink cartridge (liquid cartridge) mounted on the carriage and a type of the ink cartridge not mounted on the carriage. In the type of the ink cartridge mounted, the carriage reciprocally moves in the main scan direction in an ink cartridge mounted state to supply the ink to the inkjet recording head. In the type of the ink cartridge not mounted, the ink cartridge is provided to a body of the inkjet printer in separation from the carriage, and the ink cartridge and the inkjet recording head are connected through an ink supply tube.
In any types, a memory portion for storing a production data, a product serial, and information on ink such as remaining ink amount and a connection terminal portion for connecting the memory portion to an external circuit are provided to the ink cartridge. The cartridge mounting portion of the printer to which the ink cartridge is mounted is provided with a connector which is connected to the connection terminal portion.
A head mounting portion of the carriage of the printer is provided with a circuit substrate which is connected through the connector to the memory portion of the ink cartridge and the recording head. By such a construction, the printer transmits and receives information on the ink to and from the ink cartridge to use the information to detect the remaining ink amount or control operations such as a notification of a replacement time of the ink cartridge.
Hereinafter, an inkjet recording apparatus including an ink carriage having a conventional memory portion and a connector are described.
FIG. 27 shows a recording apparatus having a cartridge mounting portion which an ink carriage 501 can be inserted into or taken out according to a rotation of a lever arm 507.
An example of the memory for storing the aforementioned information is an information storage unit 502 including a first connection terminal portion 503 of which connection terminals are exposed and a memory portion 504 which is electrically connected to the first connection terminal portion 503. The first connection terminal portion 503 contacts with a second connection terminal portion 506 of a connector 505 which is fixed to a recording apparatus so as to be electrically connected thereto. Here, the memory portion 504 stores the information on the ink or the like.
In addition, a position of the ink cartridge 501 is moved in a direction indicated by the arrow according to a rotation of the lever arm 507 to mount the ink cartridge 501, and the first connection terminal portion 503 is allowed to contact with the second connection terminal portion 506 of the recording apparatus.
In general, since the first and second connection terminal portions 503 and 506 are formed in very small sizes, when a variation of a mounting position of the mounted ink cartridge 501 occurs, the first connection terminal portion 503 may not be electrically connected to the second connection terminal portion 506.
Therefore, in a prior art, a convex portion (not shown) for determining a position with respect to the cartridge mounting portion is provided to the ink cartridge 501, so that the variation of the mounting position of the mounted ink cartridge 501 can be reduced (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-001430).
In other words, the second connection terminal portion 506 is fixed to the carriage, and the ink cartridge 501 intends to be accurately positioned with respect to a carriage having the fixed second connection terminal portion 506 or a recording apparatus body.
However, since the aforementioned techniques are not sufficient, it is difficult to remove the variation of the position of the mounted ink cartridge 501. In particular, as shown in the figure, in the conventional ink cartridge, the first connection terminal portion 503 is disposed to a relatively large flat wall surface (upper wall surface in the figure) 508. In addition, for the purpose of implanting a small-sized light-weighted one, a plate thickness of the wall portion of the cartridge is reduced. However, a sufficient rigidity cannot be obtained by using a large wall surface 508, and molding deformation such a wave-like pattern may easily occur. Due to the influence of the molding deformation and insufficient rigidity, it is very difficult to remove the positioning accuracy of the ink cartridge 501 with respect to the connector which is fixed at an accurate position.
For the reason, the first connection terminal portion 503 may not be electrically connected to the second connection terminal portion 506 of the connector 505.